Miranda Lambert is Totally Loving Life

Country superstar Miranda Lambert is learning that there's more to life than "burning everything down". Sometimes, it's more fun to sparkle.

The last time we caught up with Miranda Lambert, she was in the hair and makeup chair getting her bodacious blondeness artfully tousled for a REDBOOK photo shoot--her first national cover for a women's magazine. Fresh off a Grammy win and four months away from her wedding to country crooner Blake Shelton, she was happy about everything but "starving to death" to fit into her dress. And she was just getting used to the enormous diamond engagement ring on her left hand. Two years later, she's added a few more sparklers to her collection, and she bought them for herself, thankyouverymuch. "Those are my celebration rings from Tiffany's," she says, showing off three white-gold and diamond bands that commemorate a number-one single, a gold record, and an appearance on Law & Order: SVU, one of her favorite TV shows. At the rate she's going, the woman will soon run out of bling fingers: Her fourth album, Four the Record, is her highest-charting yet; her side project, the Pistol Annies, has a hot album of its own; and the awards keep rolling in. Meanwhile, she and Blake have become the most beloved "rednecks" (that's her word, not ours) to hit Hollywood since the Beverly Hillbillies.

But Miranda is still Miranda--maybe more herself than ever. She's that feisty girl from Lindale, TX, raised by private investigators who taught their daughter how to play guitar and shoot a rifle. The hair is back to being all hers: "I got all my weave out!" she says, laughing. "And it feels good!" Even better, the dieting is behind her. "I was hungry--and I was angry," she says of her deprivation days. "Whether I'm a thin size 8 or a flabby size 8, I'm pretty much always a size 8. I can't nor do I want to try to be a 2. I wouldn't be nice."

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Hanging by the pool at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel in cowboy boots and a sundress, she talks about mellowing out. "I don't have to murder anyone or burn everything down," she says. But get her started on her Twitter war with Chris Brown, or being a "marriage ninja," and Mellow Miranda suddenly turns all Pistol Annie. Which is exactly how we like her.

REDBOOK: The cover of your newest album is like your "Kerosene" video--you in front of a car on fire. What's the deal with you and flames?!

MIRANDA LAMBERT: I think because "Kerosene" was the first song where people noticed me, it became a part of me.

RB: Many of your songs are angry, angsty, sad...

ML: And I don't know why, because when you're talkin' to me in person, I'm not at all! I feel like it's my alter ego.

RB: Where do you think it comes from? You've said your parents, who were private investigators, would take in battered women when you were growing up.

ML: Yeah. We took in women and their kids, from when I was 14 to 18. All the table conversations seemed normal to me, but other people would be like, "Why are you saying that in front of your children?" [Laughs] My mom is still really, really dear friends with one lady who lived with us on and off for a year or so. Two years ago, at my house in Oklahoma, this other lady drives up--I run out of the house like a mad wet hen whenever someone just drives in our driveway--and she started bawling, "My husband's beating me, I need some help. I heard 'Gunpowder & Lead.' " I ended up calling my mom. We got her into a halfway house close to where we live. When someone comes up and goes, "You know, 'Gunpowder & Lead' finally gave me the fire to get out," those are my favorite. I'm like, "Yesss! They have the balls to do it!" And I know it's hard.

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RB: Is that why you felt you had to tweet about Chris Brown [Miranda] when he performed at the Grammys last year?

ML: Yeah, I didn't feel right about not saying something. The loudmouth that I am, I say what I think. I've got these pistols tattooed on my arm, for God's sake! I wanted everyone to know that I don't agree with the message it's sending to young women. It's not okay. At all. To be celebrated after doing something like that. I don't think it's right, I never will, and I will stand by what I said till the day that I die.

RB: Is it weird to have a celebrity feud?

ML: There was no feud. I'm right, they're wrong! [Laughs]

Giles Bensimon

RB: On stage, you come off as a strong, fired-up chick. Do you ever have moments when you feel insecure?

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ML: I'm insecure about tons of things! I cry onstage once a week, singing "The House That Built Me," and I always tell the crowd, "Don't tell anyone I was cryin'!" Or "Over You," when Blake and I had all that loss in our lives. It was really hard to get up there after we had been to three funerals.

RB: Is this when Blake's dad died?

ML: His dad died, my childhood best friend passed away, and then my childhood dog, all in two weeks. I went back onstage, and I wasn't ready, but the crowd just embraced me. I had my glued-on eyelashes, they were fallin' off my face, my makeup was running down... I was like, "Okay, I'm really real. Like, all of this tough-girl image? My walls are down and all these people can see it." But it was a good moment for me. I just laid it out there, like, "I'm normal, I'm a girl, I have PMS, and I get emotional, and I'm sad sometimes, and that's it." I feel like I got over the hump of trying to be like, "I have a chip on my shoulder, I'm strong all the time," you know? Because no one is.

RB: Do you think marriage has mellowed you out?

ML: Yeah, and just growin' up. I feel like I've said everything I want to say. I proved it all. I can calm down now.

RB: You got married in your mom's wedding dress. What else did you take from her other than her dress?

ML: "Divorce is not an option." She's said that my whole life. It rings in my ears. She and my dad actually were divorced. They got married when she had just turned 20. And they were divorced when she was 24.

RB: How long were they divorced?

ML: Not even a year. She [found out she] was pregnant with me on the weekend their divorce was final, and they got remarried on their same anniversary. It's crazy. But when they got remarried, she was a different person. She was like, All right, it's not about me anymore. And so she just said, "Divorce is not an option. We will fight it out." Blake's mom and dad were divorced early, and he's had a couple of stepmoms and a couple of stepdads, so it's two different sides.

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RB: And his first marriage didn't work out. How do you feel about that?

ML: Divorce is not an option! I will fight to the death. I am a ninja. [Laughs]

RB: A marriage ninja!

ML: The first year was really hard. We had all that loss, he lived in Hollywood and I was on the road, and now all of a sudden he's on The Voice and there's freakin' paparazzi. It was also seven years together, so the seven-year "ache." It was like, "What else? Bring it on!" [Laughs]

RB: Did you ever have a moment where you were like, "I don't know if we're going to make it"?

ML: I mean, a million. I remember our first-year anniversary, it was like, "Ahh, we made it. Thank the Lord we can really start now!" It's been great since then.

RB: With all the time you guys spend apart, does absence really make the heart grow fonder?

ML: I love it. This time I hadn't seen him in 11 days, and he was just so happy when I got here, it was like [she makes an angels-singing voice] "Ahh, you're here." When I go to The Voice set and everyone says, "Blake's been talking about you so much," it just makes me feel special, you know?

RB: But do you ever get tinges of jealousy?

ML: I'm more protective. He's the sweetest guy. Like, he will talk to anyone, sign anything, take a picture with every one. And if I don't stop it at some point, it ruins our whole night. I have to be the bad guy. The people are like, "Oh, God, don't mess with her, she'll murder people."

ML: We have a rule now that either one of us can always look at each other's phone, and we know each other's passcode. So I don't have to snoop anymore. [Laughs] It just takes the question out of the marriage.

RB: Any other marriage advice?

ML: Hang out as best friends. Me and Blake have full-on parties by ourselves, listening to music. It doesn't have to be all planned and romantic and s--t. It can be burgers and beers. But... diamonds are always good. Let's get real!

The Pistol Annies' Rules for Romance

Miranda is one third of the all-girl group Pistol Annies, along with Ashley Monroe and Angaleena Presley. But don't be fooled by the title of their album, Hell on Heels. "Even though we have a harsh exterior, we're suckers for romance," says Miranda. For Valentine's Day, the trio, who are recording their second album, offer their renegade guide to seduction.

1. Go all-out for beauty. The higher the hair, the closer to heaven. "And never too many lashes," says Miranda.

2. Have a "bed date." "Schedule time together without comin' out with, 'Hey, honey, you want to have sex at 5 o'clock?'" says "Hollar Annie" Angaleena. "There are no rules. You can just snuggle. Send an Evite with an RSVP."

3. Don't be a cling-on... or put up with one. "We all hate jealousy. We do not do clingy," says Miranda. "If that happens, we're, like, 'Shut it down.'"

4. Take charge. "Men find it sexy, because they're always the ones wooing us," says "Hippie Annie" Ashley. "It's cool to show them a good time too."

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5. Be hell on heels--or in boots. "We think cowboy boots can be just as sexy as heels," says Miranda. Adds Angaleena: "I've been hell in Chucks many, many times!"

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